Halo Versus Star Wars: Genesis
by Exterminatus Extremis
Summary: An unlikely meeting begins the tale of the Greatest War.
1. Part One: First Contact

Halo Versus Star Wars

**---GENESIS---**

**Part One  
**

_It has been twenty-three years and seven months since the incident at the Ark. The Human colonies are rebuilt and the known galaxy is thriving. Reach is slowly being restored by the work and help of the Elites, who, despite many years of alliance, are still at odds with the human race. In a rare time in history, humanity has not been at war since the Master Chief destroyed the Ark and the Flood. There are still Brute picket fleets scattered around the galaxy from the Schism and the Elites have devoted a large portion of fleet and manpower to exterminate the species. One Fleet Admiral Edward Sheppard has sent an encoded message to a certain freighter captain, asking him to embark upon a mission to an as-of-yet unexplored region of space._

The long corridors on the Reach Station were packed with people; techies, analysts, scientists, Marines, and Naval officers overseeing the construction. Jacob Strabo worked his way through the masses towards the office of a Fleet Admiral who had specifically requested him for a mission. Strabo could barely contain his excitement. He was barely a step up from a civilian, and yet, an Admiral had decided he was worth the time for a meeting instead of a set of papers containing orders. As he neared the office, he slowed his pace and tried to slow his heart rate. Calmed, he walked through the door and into the office of Fleet Admiral Sheppard.

It was empty. The shelves, the desk, and the furniture were completely devoid of anything except a pen and a paper on the desk. Strabo stood in the door almost five minutes before his curiosity got the best of him and he looked at the paper. To his surprise, it was addressed to him.

"Jacob Calvin Strabo, I am sending you to do a task of the utmost importance that requires the utmost discretion. There is a sector of space that I need you to scout out. Somewhere within it is a nebula. DO NOT enter the nebula if you find it. The sector coordinates have been withheld until you sign this nondisclosure agreement. If you choose not to sign this document, return to your vessel and continue with your trade business, and I will trust you to forget about this. If you do sign this document, leave it here, lock the door, and return to your vessel to await further orders. The details will be sent to your quarters."

Confused, suspicious, but otherwise intrigued by the assignment, Strabo picked up the pen and signed the paper at the bottom.

"Why are you even bothering with this? It's been over twenty years. If the enemies you say are supposedly on the other side were really there, they'd have come by now!"

"We need to be sure. If I'm wrong, it's not any great waste of resources. Just a month or so off of a freighter captain and his crew."

"And if you're right, we could find ourselves in another war. We've just rebuilt ourselves from the last war, and that one nearly destroyed us."

"If there is a threat, this will warn us. And we might find an ally, as well. He's signed the papers and I've already sent him the necessary data. We'll know in a month."

**~~O~~**

"Two weeks. For two weeks, we've been looking for whatever it is these Sith had in their records. Some kind of spacial anomaly? The only anomaly I've detected is the black hole in my stomach. Why didn't we bring actual food anyway? Hey, I'm talking to you!" Jedi Master Rod Tambor ignored the Republic scientist's complaints and continued to meditate with his Padawan of four years, Brisa Offee.

The Sith records had described an anomaly in the sector they had been searching. While the records themselves were garbled and difficult to translate, there was mention of "intergalactic criminals" and "green-skinned supersoldiers" attacking a southern district of Coruscant. There was also mention of something called "13-B." Whether it was a military designation or some kind of droid, the Jedi researchers were unable to tell. The records stated that the armoured soldiers had destroyed entire platoons of Stormtroopers, several dozen Sith, and a part of the Lusankya prison before disappearing from existence. Then, a few years later, the Kuat Drive Yards were attacked by another of the green soldiers and the 13-B entity. Something was stolen, but the KDY held no record of what was being constructed at the station. Officially, it wasn't even being used.

In the time of relative peace that the Republic had attained, the Jedi and several government and privately-owned scientific research organizations had combined together to form a massive organization called the Organization for the Recovery and Discovery of Esoteric Remnants. ORDER was a multi-trillion credit group that had reclaimed thousands of technologies, years of history, and discovered countless relics thought lost over the millenniums of war.

The _Ctora_ itself was constructed from one of the recovered technologies; the Negative Energy drive. While not nearly as fast as a regular Hyperspace engine, the NE drive had an advantage in that it wasn't affected by gravity wells and other spacial distortions. It could fly right in front of a black hole while in Hyperspace and never even slow down. The research vessel was relatively small; at only around forty meters long, it could only carry a few passengers with the equipment it had on-board.

The scientist rose from his chair to tap the Jedi on the shoulder, annoyed at being ignored. Without opening his eyes, the Jedi reached up and deftly swatted away the offending limb before it could come within a meter of him.

"As I've told you many times before, we will find it in this region of space. It will simply take time to get to it. There are many lightyears to search in all directions, including up and down." The scientist, surprised by the Jedi's sudden movement, slumped back into his chair behind the Master and muttered something about "smug bastards" making things difficult every mission. Tambor sighed inwardly. Why they had brought a linguist along, instead of another astrophysicist, was beyond him. The council had told him to do so, so he had. Twelve days of searching had been more than enough to try his patience with the man a thousand times over.

"You're a master at linguistics, correct?" he asked.

The man paused sulking before answering spitefully, "Yes, I am. Better by far than any droid you'd be able to find in this galaxy or the next. It's all about interpretation, body language, and feeling. Of course, if one doesn't--"

"Ah. I had thought that your grasp of language was limited to insults, mumbling, and quietly sulking like an upstart Youngling." The man was about to launch into a furious tirade to defend himself when the pilot turned around and told them all to shut up for a minute. After a brief minute of listening to the ship's computer talk to him over his headset, he grinned widely.

"Probe 1d4kfa56-09 has found something juicy for us. Shall I change course?" The unanimous "yes" could not have been more heartfelt.

They emerged from Hyperspace less than a hundred kilometers from the distortion. Just as they arrived, the computer lost contact with the probe.

"Hull breach!" The pilot yelled. Moments after arriving, the _Ctora_ had started shaking uncontrollably as it was dragged through space towards the anomaly. Or at least, where the anomaly was supposed to be.

The computer couldn't make heads or tails of it. It was as though its directional sensors had been destroyed; galactic "down" was now also left, right, _and_ up. To the inhabitants of the craft, the same was happening within their bubble of atmosphere. It was an extreme sense of vertigo. The aft of the ship was under normal stresses while the front of the ship was being compressed. They could feel the metal complaining under the pressure differences. The hull around them rippled and flowed like water, parts of it shifting to impossible angles.

Then a part of the engine compartment had torn open, making repairs all but impossible. An automatic distress beacon went out in all directions, but the crew was to busy trying not to fall "up" to notice.

Rod Tambor focused his mind away from the madness. In the calm provided by his Force sensitivity, he watched the pilot clutching at his head and tearing at his eyes. He could have sworn, briefly, that he saw a bloody, gnarled face of some kind laughing on the monitor, but it sparked and shut off. Tambor moved across the cabin (the gravity generators had longs since given out) and grabbed the pilot's arms, restraining him. A stench filled the cabin as one of the others soiled themselves.

The Jedi Master didn't know enough about piloting to figure out what was going on with the ship. What little the sensors could tell was that the ship wouldn't move backward, only forward. He gunned the thrusters and hoped that it would equalize the pressure. The last thing he saw before unconsciousness claimed him was a bright white light surrounding a light-consuming darkness, the latter growing larger as the ship raced towards it.

**~~O~~**

Jacob Strabo's ship was called the _Gossamer_. Unlike its namesake, it was, outwardly, a piece of junk floating in space. Originally, it had been a simple freighter in the UNSC supply fleet. During an action at Gamma Halo after the war, it had taken severe damage and was decommissioned. Jacob had bought the wreck and gotten it fixed up on a backwater planet called Sodall. The repair workers there had discovered a crashed covenant vessel during the war, and scavenged it for parts to fix the _Gossamer_. What would have cost him a fortune anywhere else instead cost him an unreasonably low price. The workers had even repaired a few rudimentary shielding and weaponry systems, though Strabo had never used either for any offensive purposes.

Had he known that a certain Admiral was pulling strings and that the badly misspoken and poorly dressed bumpkin he had talked to was actually one of the Office of Naval Intelligence Section II's best scientists, he would probably have avoided the backwater like it was a Flood-controlled deathworld.

Of course, not knowing about the meddling Admiral's intent, he didn't realize that the Covenant systems had been conveniently upgraded with an ancient, perfectly preserved Forerunner computer system that translated language of any kind, provided the language was inputed beforehand. To most, its use was limited to human/Covenant species interaction, as those were the only languages ("Only" being several hundred human dialects and their varieties, and then every language of the Covenant) that anyone saw fit to use any more. The system was also able to translate binary, trinary, and so on up the list with ease.

Which, of course, meant that it could easily translate the binary-encoded distress call from the _Ctora_.

"What is that alarm, Eric?" Strabo asked his second in command. The man threw his arms up, completely flabbergasted.

"My console just went blank. There's a line of binary running across the screen. It's translating...it says we've received a distress call. Playing it now." The main viewscreen flashed the words.

"Research vessel designation R-J23 of the ORDER: the _Ctora_. Request assistance at unknown coordinates in the westernmost edge of the Outer Rim. Hull integrity compromised. Engines damaged. Hyperspace capabilities offline," the computer rambled a long list of the ship's maladies, then continued, "Objective reached. Target coordinates held spacial distortion(s?) of (an?) unknown type(s?). Damage sustained, ship disabled. Requesting assistance. Research vessel designation..." The message repeated.

Strabo sighed. Yet another weirdness in an already strange mission. A day before this, they had started picking up some really, really strange readings in the space around them as they traveled. The sensors kept saying that there were things out there that weren't. Briefly, it seemed to think that there were hull breaches all over the ship, and that Earth was right in front of them.

"Shut that thing off, if you can figure out how. Adjust course to find the source of that message." The Admiral would just have to deal with a little detour.

For an entire day, they searched for the crippled vessel, but found nothing without reliable sensors. The transmission stopped after an hour as well. It was as though they'd imagined the entire event. Jacob was just about to turn them back on course when the sensors pinged on an object moving at high speed away from them. He ordered the helm to follow the object at range.

It took an hour, but eventually the object slowed down enough for them to get a decent look at it. Somehow, in all the time they'd been chasing the thing, they'd never gone more than a thousand kilometers. It took another four minutes for them to come within visual range.

"Strabo...what the hell is going on here?" Eric asked him, his eyes wide. The "object' had all but stopped, and they were coasting towards it at less than ten kilometers per second. It was obviously a ship of some sort, mildly damaged, from what he could tell. But it was what it looked like that had them all gawking out the main window at it.

The ship looked like it was moving. It was blurred, and what looked like engines were outputting a massive amount of light. But it wasn't going anywhere from what the crew of the _Gossamer_ could tell. It was stopped dead, but it looked like it was moving at immense speeds.

**~~O~~**

Jedi Master Tambor still had his hand on the acceleration button, and he was just beginning to lose consciousness when he saw a ship outside. It was moving incredibly fast towards the _Ctora_, even though they were nearing Hyperspace jump speeds.

When he woke up, the ship was still out there, but it wasn't moving. Or at least, it didn't look like it was moving. He checked the console. Somehow, the engines were still outputting massive thrust, but that ship was keeping pace with them...sideways. He looked from the console to the viewscreen in disbelief, then turned back to look at the other passengers strewn across the compartment. He was just about to tend to his padawan when the ship jolted as though struck by a torpedo. Outside, the vessel keeping pace vanished behind them.

**~~O~~**

The vessel outside the window lurched and shot away, finally seeming to follow the laws of physics. Strabo ordered his helmsman to give the engines everything and follow the ship. For another ten minutes or so, they chased it until it slowed down. This time, though, it actually slowed down.

The exchange would later baffle scientists. The _Ctora_ had been moving just under Hyperspace speeds, and the _Gossamer_ hadn't been moving at all. But the two ships, according to their sensors, had been sitting right next to each other in the same area in space.

Jacob had the helmsman gradually push the ship closer to its counterpart. He recorded what he believed to be a standard, unassuming message and sent it to the other ship in the same format of binary they'd received it.

**~~O~~**

Tambor had succeeded in awakening the linguist and his padawan. The pilot remained unconscious, thankfully. Until they could figure out what had gone wrong, it was best he didn't try to claw his eyes out again. The linguist sat at a console, shaking. The console was blinking at him, but he didn't notice. Tambor moved across the cabin and tapped a key. A message appeared on the console, translated from binary into scrambled Basic.

"Hello. My name is Jacob Strabo of the UNSC freighter _Gossamer_. We have received your distress call and are willing to freely offer you aid. What is the status of your vessel?"

The Jedi Master took a glance at the readouts from the pilot's console and typed up the list on the communications station. He added a few sentences about thanks and who he was, then requested docking for repairs. The other ship was not much larger than the _Ctora_, but it would likely have some kind of repair crew or engineer. Their own engineer had been blasted into space when the hull plating burst under the conflicting pressures. That the engines had worked to get them out of there at all was a miracle on its own. He doubted it would get them to any of the nearest systems, as those were days away in any case. Unless these humans knew how to fix an NE drive.

**~~O~~**

The linkup went well enough. The _Ctora _extended an umbilical which sealed itself around the _Gossamer_'s external repair hatch. Jacob and Eric waited in front of the hatch, Eric having a concealed pistol on him somewhere. Jacob hoped dearly that it wouldn't be needed (that would be a God-awful way to make First Contact) but it never hurt to be cautious. As the hatch seals hissed and pressure equalized, new worries flashed through his head; what if they didn't breath oxygen? What if the air was toxic? What if it was too hot or cold? What if...

His thoughts on the finer points of xenobiology were interrupted when the hatch opened. In all his time working for the UNSC, not once had he been this surprised. He'd been expecting some new alien race, one not affected by the trappings of the former Covenant. He'd been expecting tentacles, green skin, weird facial features that performed unknown functions. What he got was, in a way, even more alien and distressing.

They were humans.

Jacob's mind reeled at the possibilities of how this might have happened. Time travel? Ancient, lost colony? He noted the looks of equal confusion on his crew's faces and the faces of the other humans. Save for one. The tall man was one of the two clad in simple tan robes with brown strappings and metal cylinders at their belts. His expression was one of faint amusement. The other one was shorter, and had a braid in his blonde hair. The third man was a diminutive, stick-like man who kept hunched over slightly with his hands close together, as though ready to fend off an attack or run at a moment's notice. He smelled vaguely of offal.

The two groups stood for several minutes, analyzing and processing this startling revelation. The only sounds were the running of the _Gossamer_'s engines and the beeping of consoles, one of which still displayed Rod Tambor's message. Eventually, the tall man made the first move. He extended his open hand towards Jacob, who reached out and shook it.

**End Part One**

**

* * *

**And there you have it. After more than half a year, my first update is a meager five pages long. Rest assured, however, that I will be keeping the updates semi-regular and hopefully more frequent than I did the original story.

This new story will (hopefully) be considerably more mature-sounding, more dynamic, and less balls-to-the-wall actiony than the original. After rereading the Battle for Tatooine, I realized just how ridiculous and pointless the entire scenario would have been. Especially in the first four chapters, the characters lacked depth, the story was at best hard to enjoy, and the writing style was like a little boy's fantasy: big guns, big space battles, overdramatic posturing, and a bunch of supersoldiers kicking all kinds of ass without taking a scratch. Had I continued along the story arc I was intending, I'd have had people screaming "MARY SUE! MARY SUE!" at Daniels for a very long time.

In any case, I'm hoping I've done away with all that and made the story at least a little more believable. Updates will gradually become longer as more dynamic (I don't want to say important) characters are introduced.

While I'm on the track of Daniels and other such characters, much later on in the story (not in Genesis) you'll see some Warhammer 40k crossover as well. This won't last too long, I'm hoping. Even though (in the words of BPen) Warhammer 40k can make ANYTHING awesome, Grim Dark is not quite what I'm going for in this one.

This new Halo Versus Star Wars: The Story will be a collection of smaller stories, each of which will detail a different story arc. Length will vary.

I will request one thing from anyone who reads this; if something, at some point, be it in the story line or in the facts/history/science of things is wrong, do point it out to me.

Co-Authers Exterminatus Extremis and Anton Pein.


	2. Part Two: Out of Context

**Part Two**

Reach Station was not quite complete yet, but the parts of it that were, were magnificent. Holding a vague diamond shape, it was a full six kilometers wide along the central commons area, and almost eight kilometers from "top" to "bottom." It was a curious hybrid of human and Covenant engineering. At its center were several massive plasma reactors stripped out of a few scuttled Assault Carriers. These powered everything on the station from the lights and air conditioning to the two massive Magnetic Accelerator Cannons on either side of the station.

The MACs themselves were a pair of stripped-down _Marathon-_class cruisers. When the _Bohemian _and the _Delphias_ were crippled in the original action at Reach, the majority of the systems for use in the MACs were left intact. When Reach Station was first begun, a lot of the build materials came from the orbiting scrapyard the Covenant had kindly built above Reach's northern pole. Naturally, the dual-MAC systems on the _Marathon_ cruisers made for an excellent defensive measure later on in the project. They were mounted on six hydraulic pivots, allowing them to be turned and aimed without moving the entire station like the Orbital MAC stations at Earth.

Along with the four great cannons, the Elites had positioned nine plasma turrets at points along the top and bottom of the main section. Scattered across the structure of the station were nearly a thousand close-defense systems: 50-caliber turrets, machine guns, railguns, plasma-based defenses, and similar things. The energy required to run all of the weapon systems was enormous, so they were kept powered down unless needed. While there was no open conflict anymore, there were still Brute fleets prowling the depths of space, and there was still a healthy enough amount of distrust between the Elites and Humans that they still felt the need for so many weapons.

While he wasn't aware of the power of the armaments on the station, Rod Tambor was awed by it. It wasn't even as big as some mainline vessels he'd seen, but it was still impressive to behold something of its size. And it wasn't even completed yet.

They'd led him to a room with a large table in the middle. There were two doors; one on either end of the table. In the center of the table was a large crystalline dome. The wall to his left was a large window that looked out over the blasted world beneath. He nervously thumbed the translator he'd taken from his ship. By some coincidence, these humans used the same computer language as a good deal of the civilized galaxy used. While the grammar wasn't perfect, the message was conveyed well enough. According to the translator, he was awaiting the audience of several major leaders among the human population here. There had been allusions to something called Sangheili (no translation, unsurprisingly), but so far he'd seen none of them. He wondered if they were a different division within the human military here, or if they were an entirely different species.

He heard a noise behind him. The door had opened to reveal two of the black and grey-clad soldiers with the skeletal, black guns. One took up a position at the other door, and the other stayed beside the left door. Behind them were two men clad in white uniforms and round hats with a slight bill on the front. Behind them, he could make out a tall, bulky shape in the corridor, but the door closed and blocked it from view.

They each stood at the table, one on the longer side and the other on the end. They gestured for him to sit across from the one on the long side, and as he sat so did they. They each held flat screens on which letters and numbers flashed in boxes.

Understanding, he took out his own data pad.

"Greetings," he read as one of the men spoke. "I am Admiral Huntz of the UNSC, and this is Lieutenant Fredericks of the Office of Naval Intelligence."

"I am Jedi Master Rod Tambor. I represent the Jedi Order and the ORDER, a science organization in the galaxy. I was scouting a nebula for the ORDER when something happened to my ship. It was damaged heavily and needs repairs." He leaned forward, deciding to voice what was on his mind. "The Republic encompasses most of the galaxy, and the rest is almost completely explored. How is it that we have no records of your civilization anywhere?" He watched the two men exchange a look and several whispered words.

"We're not entirely sure what you're talking about. To the best of our knowledge, the galaxy is mostly uninhabited, and it's doubtful you'd miss such a significant stretch of the galaxy as is inhabited by us," said the Office of Naval Intelligence man. "As a matter of fact, we've never encountered anything remotely like your technology before."

The Jedi was visibly shaken by this. They showed him a map of how much of the galaxy they encompassed. He took one look at the size and location of Humanity's worlds and muttered something that came up as "impossible" on the screen. He started rambling.

"This can't be happening. It makes no sense! I've either traveled back in time or, more likely (though no less insane) I've found myself in a completely different galaxy. How old is your race?" when they answered him, and the computer translated the Earth years into galactic rotations, he continued to be confused. "Impossible," he kept muttering. "There is no way I could have gone that far in that space of time." Then again, the ship's sensors had been registering some...strange...readings as to the velocity and direction of the ship's travel. Maybe that anomaly had done something to the engines?

After an hour or so of confused explanations and amazing contradictions, they agreed to help repair his ship and send a scientific expedition along with him to the site where he'd been found. Once the Jedi explained the circumstances, the lead scientists were intrigued beyond measure as well.

They were swarming like locusts over the _Ctora_, trying to get a better understanding of how it worked. On a basic level, it wasn't too far separated from their own systems, as far as power supply and control went. The engines, however, were completely foreign, and the engineers couldn't make heads or tails of it. Even the floating Covenant savants were at a loss, though it might have been that they weren't allowed to take the thing apart and analyze it in detail.

It took a few days, but they managed to get the ship into working order again with the pilot's help. It was decided that it would be easier to put the much smaller ship into the hold of the frigate _Crimson Sun, _which would be transporting the expedition. The humans didn't inform any of the Jedi or their crew, but the science team would be followed at a distance by the UNSC destroyer _Umbra _as a safeguard.

All told, the team consisted of around thirty ranking scientists and their assistants. Mathematicians, physicists, astronomers, engineers, and subsets of those distinctions comprised the majority of them. The rest of the population of the vessel were those necessary for its functioning: command, crew, and more engineers, plus a platoon of Marines. The Elites had opted out involvement, as human affairs were only vaguely their concern. They, too, however, sent a destroyer to trail the expedition.

They departed less than a week after the ship had arrived at Reach Station. The scientific community was in something of an uproar about the possibilities; some favored that the _Ctora _had traveled through a wormhole. Others theorized that the ship had been forced back in time from humanity's future. A small portion thought it was all a misunderstanding, and one specific astrophysicist held that it was possible for the ship to have crossed realities if it had happened across a tear in reality. His license was nearly revoked in all the confusion.

The military wasn't too concerned with the how of it as much as they were with the threat of it. According to the Jedi's testimony, his galaxy was massively powerful. Entire armies built in weeks, wars lasting thousands of years, guns that could shoot halfway across the _galaxy_...even the smallest cruisers could level a planet with ease. Since Reach Station wasn't yet a publicly-open facility, the civilians of humanity had no idea what was going on.

A certain admiral sighed and leaned back in his chair. He knew, of course, how the expedition would end. _He _had warned him of the circumstances regarding the start of the Greatest War, before _he _had left him half-dead in a forest on Reach.

Elsewhere, a different admiral perused a supposedly encrypted file regarding an action during the first year of the Covenant war. He noticed the discrepancies, the half-truths and vague statements in the debriefings. _Finally,_ he thought, _I have something on him. _He sent a communique to one of his captains, and a fourth and final ship was dispatched to "join" the expedition.

The return trip took another two days. They dropped out of Slipspace (which Tambor had questioned them mercilessly about) at the exact coordinates where Jacob Strabo had encountered the alien ship. From there, the _Crimson Sun _moved slowly, probing the surrounding space for signs of the anomaly the aliens described.

An hour after the frigate arrived, the _Umbra _left Slipspace beyond visual sensor range. They pinged the bridge of the science vessel to let them know that, yes, their insurance policy had their backs. They also let them know of the arrival of an Elite vessel several minutes later.

Tambor and his apprentice were sparring on the observation deck, watched by a fascinated squad of Marines. They'd seen blades of energy before. One of them had even been lucky enough to try and wield one, but it had been far to big to fit his human hands. Any time they'd seen those plasma swords in action, though, they'd been horrified by the brutality and ferocity of the attacks. These Jedi dueled with such grace and finesse! Their lightsabers danced and flickered, occasionally throwing off sparks.

The dance stopped as the Master struck the Apprentice on the shoulder, the lightsaber bouncing off the sparring shield. Bowing as the Marines clapped, Tambor felt the stirrings of amusement. Neither of them were particularly skilled with their trademark weapons; they were both trained as diplomats, more for political battles than combat. If they were amazed by the simple sparring match, he'd have payed good credits to see their reaction to a duel between the current ranking Masters of lightsaber combat arts.

His amusement vanished as he felt a tickling at the edges of his Force sense. He glanced out into space. Something was stirring in the void, something vast and terrible. Dread weighed upon him like an anchor attached to his heart. So much wrongness...so much empty rage.

He shook his head to clear it. Looking out of the armored glass again, he saw only stars and the space between. The feeling disappeared as soon as it had come. He pulled his apprentice to him and whispered into his ear.

"Did you feel it? Something was out there, watching. Something terrible and _wrong._" His apprentice nodded; he'd felt it too. He turned to the Marines, who were watching the duel on a recording device. Bowing briefly again, he said something into their translator and walked off the observation deck with his apprentice.

They meditated in their quarters while they waited for the scientists to find something. Sitting cross-legged across from each other on the floor, they reached out with their minds for several hours, but found nothing. Whatever it was had gone. Tambor was about to break the trance when a voice spoke over the ship.

"All members of the science team please report to Cargo 1," his pad said. Shortly thereafter, the squad of Marines they'd left on the observation deck arrived at their door and bade they follow.

"We've found the anomaly. We're at a far enough distance to be safe, and we're sending in a Slipspace-capable probe to record the effects. The data should arrive in the next few minutes," the scientists' elected speaker told them.

Sure enough, sensor readings began to pour into the giant lab set up in Cargo 1. The probe was giving conflicting reports about what was going on. After a brief explanation of what the computer was saying, Tambor confirmed that it was the same readings they'd gotten on the _Ctora. _

Two hours later, the probe stopped sending data. The engineers were baffled by it. The probe was obviously still there; the transponder was active. They just weren't receiving anything else. After another two hours (and six minutes, thirteen seconds, one pointed out, annoyed), they called it quits for the day and started turning off the nonessential equipment. Then, one of the computers that was on the receiving end of the data stream went haywire and shorted out. The rest of the computers snapped on of their own accord, much to the chagrin of the on-duty engineer team. Certain things just shouldn't happen. They quickly hooked up a dedicated storage module for the data. Terabytes flowed in, nearly overloading the computers. The screens that normally displayed the data were blank; the information was moving too fast to process.

Engineers chilled the room to near-freezing so that the computers wouldn't overheat. Then, the flow stopped and the transponder signal shut off. A Marine had to stand in front of the door so that the scientists didn't destroy the lab in their zeal to get at the data. The timely arrival of the two Jedi helped to stabilize the situation somewhat. It never occurred to them that the same thing happened almost weekly in their own civilization, and somehow so easily occurred here as well.

Eventually, they were let in in an orderly fashion. The rest of the ship went to sleep while they drank coffee from a row of sporting-event-sized coolers and ate the mountains of information. Most of it was nonsensical, but what they did understand was amazing. Energy readings, velocity data, sheer molestation of the laws of physics. Tambor was getting impatient despite himself. They'd found the anomaly, all well and good. But was there a way to get back to their own people?

The answer presented itself in the form of the probe the following morning. It returned through the same anomaly. They recovered it after scanning it for radiation or other dangerous energies. It was a complete wreck. While almost solid Titanium-A, its insides were still a computer, and strong magnetic fields were ever infamous for playing merry hell with electronics. On the underside of the oblong shape, they noticed a squarish object welded to the interior chamber. It was a container of some sort.

Rod Tambor immediately recognized its contents as a holocron. He grabbed it before the scientists' prying hands could find it. Shooing them away, he cleared a small table in the center of the room and set the holocron on it. It activated and relayed its message.

The face that appeared was a stranger one. It was a Twi'lek, though the humans had no way of knowing that. They marveled at the clarity of the hologram. One of them ran her hand through it, disappointed slightly that the image shimmered the same as their own holographic technology. The Jedi ignored her, listening instead to the message.

"Jedi Master Rod Tambor and Padawan Brisa Offee, if you're receiving this message, you must be the luckiest bastards in existence. We lost contact with the _Ctora _soon after you entered that nebula a month ago. This probe we've attached our message to is the first sign we've had that you might still be alive. The Jedi Council feared the worst after discovering the remains of your engineer and a large portion of your hull just floating around in the void. They also thought it was strange that no one had felt your...death...through the Force. They were afraid that something terrible had returned, but wouldn't say what it was. Oh well, that's beside the point. As you've probably figured out, most objects sent through are destroyed or damaged in some way. This probe, though sturdy, was no exception. After reviewing the final data sent from your ship and analysis of this probe, we've determined that the density and structure of the object going through the anomaly plays a part in the amount of damage it suffers. The probe was much more dense than the _Ctora, _and it was functioning well enough until our research team opened its casing. At that point, it overheated and fried, probably from the stress of the amount of data it was sending back through the anomaly. But I digress. We've come up with a solution: we're going to send a refitted Star Destroyer through. It should be able to pass relatively unscathed and be able to make a return trip. However...the Senate won't give us leave to dispatch the ship until we have proof of your survival. Send a message as soon as you can, and in something denser than this probe. Good luck, Jedi."

Tambor shook his head. A month? He'd only encountered the anomaly two weeks ago at most. No matter, he decided. The scientists were abuzz as they finished reading the translated message. So simple, the solution, and yet it had escaped their notice! Tambor took the holocron and, after asking for silence from the many voices in the room (which was aided by the Marine firing off a round) he recorded his message.

"Send your ship..."

**End Part Two  
**

**

* * *

**I must apologize again for my tardiness in posting. I know I never really said how often I'd be updating, but four months is still a ridiculous amount of time. I must return to that age-old excuse...SCHOOL has been sucking up what little free time I had to write. As the year draws to a close, I will hopefully have more time to write, and I'm predicting (tentatively) that the updates will be around once a month at the latest. Don't hold me to that, though.

I also apologize if this update seems rushed in places. After a period of time, during which I wrote the first half of this short (only four pages!) chapter, the ideas of what I wanted to do with the first meeting ran out. I eventually decided to introduce a few quick fixes to get things moving, and while I am WELL aware that almost none of the physics of the anomaly make any sense whatsoever...that's sort of the point. It's supposed to be a big, wrong, un-thing that sits in space and is _wrong._

Anyway, here's Part Two of Genesis. I'm predicting Part Three going up sometime in June, once school ends.

On a side note, kudos to anyone who can guess what the two Jedi sensed on the Observation Deck.


	3. Part Three: Shaking Hands

_**Part III**_

Jedi Master Rod Tambor stood on the bridge of the _Crimson Sun _and watched as the Star Destroyer appeared. They'd waited at most a day after sending the message back through.

The crew of the Crimson Sun were flabbergasted by the look of the ISD _Freedom_. The _Freedom_ was by far larger than even the UNSCs biggest ships, and with it's eight Turbolaser batteries, it carried enough firepower to pulverize a planet. The one-and-a-half kilometer long triangular ship moved slowly towards the UNSC frigate, sending out a message.

"Jedi master Rod Tambor we have arrived to bring you back to our galaxy. Our sensors are picking up multiple vessels in this system. Please tell the captain of the vessel you occupy to ping us so we can send a shuttle over to you to tow your ship back into ours." Tambor did as he was told and a few minutes later the shuttle arrived on the _Crimson Sun_. Out of it came two senate guards as well as Jedi council member, Nikolaus Peshter. The council member bade the Marines take a binary-encoded message to their leaders, rejoined his people and the shuttle towed the _Ctora_ back to the Star Destroyer.

**~~O~~**

Tambor was relieved to be onboard a proper ship again. While the _Freedom_ had somewhat uncomfortable environmental settings, it was a lot better than the processed, stale air on the UNSC vessels. It also lacked that slight chill that was just cold enough to be impossible to ignore without actually inhibiting performance.

He'd met briefly with the other Master there. Nikolaus was a suspicious old man who didn't trust the other humans in the slightest. He was old enough to remember the turmoil and chaos following the fall of the Empire. It took twenty years for things to settle down. Through it all, the Sith had manipulated things to their own designs until Trowa Skywalker and her Crusader Jedi defied the Council's orders and led a purge to wipe them out. The Purge was a roaring success until they encountered a Sith named Titan. They crippled him severely, but in the end he still won out and slew Trowa, ending the Purge.

"You've been summoned by the Council to speak on these events. Following this, you'll have to report to the Senate and then the ORDER wants a piece of you, too." Nikolaus handed him an itinerary. "Here's a To Do list."

Tambor glanced at it, blinked, and looked up. "A meeting with the full Senate? And the Generals of the Legions?" He continued reading. "The Admiralship, too? Are they expecting some sort of war?" Nikolaus only nodded.

After the other Master left, Rod thumped his head against a wall. So stupid sometimes, the Republic. Always considering the worst in everything.

**~~O~~**

"...after which, we received the probe and the holocron within," Tambor finished. He'd spent several hours going over the events in detail with the current Jedi Council. They sat and considered his words for several minutes, then one spoke. She was an Iridonian of unusually tall height.

"We would like to discuss what it was you sensed while onboard their vessel. If you would allow Aernon to analyze your memories for the Council..." Tambor nodded. The Arkadian sitting next to her stood and from his robes pulled a device. He attached a probed to his forehead and then ran a cord into the main holographic viewer in the center of the chamber. Next, he opened a black box, within which was a purple crystal. He set this in a slot within the viewer, and activated the device. It glowed faintly and hummed. Every Jedi in the room felt their minds open to the Force and prepared to receive whatever information Tambor could give from his memory.

Aernon slowly, deliberately, placed his hand on Tambor's face, one finger on his forehead, the other on his left cheekbone, and his thumb on the other cheek. Slowly, the memories of that event onboard the _Crimson Sun _resurfaced vividly, and were transmitted to the Council. Each one's face reacted differently, from surprise to horror to nothing at all. Once it was done, Aernon turned off the device and removed his hand from Tambor's head. Packing it all up, he returned to his seat and blinked several times, solidifying his identity internally. Memory transfer and mindmelding in general were dangerous to those doing the melding.

The Iridonian sat back, a look of confusion on her face. "Such rage," she muttered. Louder, "Thank you for sharing the sense."

"We will have to look into this if and when we establish a stable relationship with these other humans. Perhaps they know what it might be?" Said another of the seated Masters.

"It's doubtful. They do not have the ability to sense the Force."

"True, but they might know of something that has gives off this sort of impression. See about this when you return."

"Master?"

"We are assigning you to be the Ambassador's official bodyguard for the duration of the negotiations. This will give you the opportunity to find out more about these humans and relay it back to us."

Tambor nodded. It wasn't truly espionage, just information gathering. The next day, he was summoned before the Senate. It was all very typical. The Generals and Admiralship wanted to know more about the enemy's military power, the Senators couldn't agree on much of anything, and Rod Tambor was stuck for several hours answering questions with variations on "I don't know."

Next, he was trucked over to ORDER headquarters and interrogated by them. This meeting, however, was more about the technologies than anything. As the Jedi was not an engineer or technically inclined in any significant way, the best he could do was say that they were very primitive and developing along a completely different line than their own civilization. They were positively delighted to find out that the Sith records about the nebula had been correct, however. It was a major breakthrough in what had been a relatively boring decade.

After three exhausting days, he was given some downtime to rest and take care of whatever business he needed to on Coruscant before they loaded him onto a Mon-Calamari cruiser, the _Never-Ending Peace_. It was to be escorted by the Star Destroyer _Freedom_, the same vessel that had brought him back from the other side. That was the most the military brass could elbow into the negotiations. They'd insisted that the cruiser be escorted by a proper fighting ship.

While en route to the nebula, Tambor realized that he hadn't even met the Ambassador, Tark Wetor. He was a thin, short man, with a pronounced mustachio and slightly pointed nose. Tambor realized the man was nothing short of completely ordinary. It would perhaps be helpful in some ways for the other humans. From what he'd seen, their averages and norms, physiologically speaking, were around the same. He took it as a positive sign for future relations that there were fundamental similarities.

**~~O~~**

For the UNSC, it had barely been three days. For Rod Tambor, it was just shy of a week upon their return through the Rift. He had to actively force himself not to dwell on it. Certain headaches, he just didn't need. Briefly, they coordinated with the eight vessels awaiting them, a small fleet spearheaded by the _Umbra_ and a Marathon-class cruiser, the _Eagle's Pride_. Coordinates were transmitted and relayed, destinations set, and the Republic pair jumped away. The destroyer followed, but the cruiser and the rest of the fleet stayed.

It was a day's journey back to Reach Station without stopping. The Hyperspace-capable vessels made the journey in half that time, arriving well ahead of the _Umbra_. One could all but hear engineers and scientists salivating for a chance at the drives.

Fundamentally, at least according to theory, Hyperspace and Slipspace capabilities were not all that different. Both involved bypassing the light speed barrier by traveling through a parallel level of space. The main differences were that Hyperspace (simply because they were so much better at it) was faster, while Slipspace jumps didn't have to be concerned about traveling too close to gravity wells. In fact, with Slipspace drives, one could jump in and out of a gravity well.

The Ambassador's shuttle, with his Jedi escort onboard, was about halfway to Reach Station when Tambor realized just how massive the installation was compared to the UNSC's vessels' average sizes. Certainly not much compared to some of the smaller ships he'd seen from his own civilization, it was still impressive. And the sheer size of those weapons! The four massive cannons on the sides of the station were intimidating in their own right.

They landed in a specified bay, not much more than a few times the size of the shuttle itself. They were greeted by an honor guard, the green-clad Marines standing ramrod-straight, their assault rifles at their sides. Belatedly, Tambor realized this was the same troop from the _Crimson Sun_ that had served as his escort.

Behind him and the Ambassador were two Clones, the legions of which were now under the Republic's control again. In an effort to solidify the transition, they were given a model of armor from the start of the Clone Wars when they still fought for the Republic. It was little more than an appearance change, as the armor had been upgraded since then. These particular Clones had ceremonial armor, gilt in places with red and gold. Behind them were four regularly-armored Clones, which stayed back on the shuttle.

Tambor barely paid attention as the Marines led them to the same conference room he'd been in on his first stay at Reach. He was too busy watching the scorched planet below, and the relatively small pockets of green and blue that were the first fruits of the terraforming effort. Surrounding them...grey, black, and fiery red and orange. Whatever had happened to this planet had razed it to the ground, and burned anything that was standing. He saw a brief glimpse of a massive sinkhole around what used to be a mountain in one of the green areas before they arrived at the room.

Greeting, in turn, Admirals Mason and Huntz, of the UNSC, Admiral Leditzky of the Office of Naval Intelligence Section III, and Ambassador Churchill (yes, THAT Churchill line) from the United Earth Federation.

Tambor didn't listen very much to the politicking and discussion of histories and such. Occasionally, he'd answer a question or help with one, but most of the time he meditated or looked out the window in front of him at the planet below. Such..._pain. _How he hadn't felt it before, he wasn't sure. The world screamed through the Force, and he could feel the echoes of a dozen other worlds like this one. Raped and burned from orbit.

Soon enough, he found out why. They were discussing something called the Covenant War, in which the humans and a conglomeration of races fought over a mere technicality in a translation device. They were hiding something, but that wasn't unexpected. They'd "won" after the battle at the Ark, where they decapitated the leadership and major fleet of the Covenant and left them to burn as the Ark shook itself to pieces. Tambor noted that they never actually said what the Ark was or where. He questioned them on that.

"We don't actually know, that's the issue. We followed the Covenant fleet through a portal they'd created and ended up somewhere outside of known space. What it was for, we have no idea. Truthfully, we're not even certain what happened after our fleet fled the installation. The strike team we left behind...only one made it back, and he was less-than-cooperative with information." It was an understatement. The Arbiter was pissed off beyond measure, thought not at the UNSC. He raged at the Prophets, the false Covenant, the sheer idiocy of it all. Johnson. Miranda Keys. Mostly, he was saddened by the loss of his (former) worthy opponent, the Spartan John-117. The Demon had given his life to stop the Flood from escaping. When the Arbiter found out about ONI's pet Flood project, he nearly mobilized the Sangheili fleet to attack. Half-Jaws, the brass later found out, had talked reason into him. No one needed another war.

Instead, the Arbiter cut most diplomatic ties and left the UNSC a message. "We will help you rebuild, but once your worlds are restored we will not be allies."

Of course, not wanting to explain the Flood, Halo, the Spartan projects, or most other things that were classified during the War, the human representatives mentioned none of this. Tambor still felt that they were lying, but let it go for the moment. They need not know all of the abilities granted by the Force.

**~~O~~**

"Captain, we're nearing Jericho and are ready to drop out of Slipspace and report in." Captain Perin nodded and gave the go-ahead. No delays, no exceptions. He wanted that damned Prowler out of his fleet and its cargo as far away as possible. Let someone else deal with it for a while.

It wasn't really that it was...what it was. He could deal with those creatures. He'd made this sort of run a dozen times before. It was that there was something _wrong_ with this particular batch of them, something no one could explain. People were having nightmares, seeing things in the dark...and everywhere, whispers from the corners of empty rooms followed the crew. The cargo was still in stasis. It couldn't be aware, could it? He could swear he heard deep, evil laughing every time he was alone.

Pushing it from his mind, he blinked a little as they dropped out of Slipspace over Jericho V, the only inhabitable planet in the system. The entire planet was ONI-controlled, though from the background. Sure, there were cities and people and everything else a thriving Colony should have, but it was run by ONI.

"Delivery Alpha to Troy Station, we are checking in and beginning our last run to Reach. Delivery One requires refueling and is proceeding to dock, confirmed?" He awaited a response for several minutes and received none.

"Delivery Alpha to Troy Station, respond please." Nothing. Turning to his bridge crew with a raised eyebrow. None of them knew anything either. A console bleeped.

"Scans complete. The station is...gone, sir. Beginning scans of surf-"

"Contacts inbound! Vessels are of Covenant classification and have launched torpedoes!" Something struck the hull. Shouts began to fill the bridge and communication frequencies of attacks from all sides as more than a dozen Covenant vessels made themselves known and opened fire.

"They're focusing fire on Delivery One! Delivery Gamma has moved to defend." Something struck the ship, and again. "Shields failing! Fires and decompression on all decks. Sir, we can't take much more of-" They knew pain, then nothing as a plasma torpedo impacted on the bridge.

**~~O~~**

"Shipmaster, their fleet is in tatters. Operation successful." The Shipmaster nodded. Let it not be said that the Elites had grown soft in the quarter-century without war. He turned to the Operative on the bridge, watching.

"Burn the vessel with the specimen," he said aside to his Tactical officer at the man's slight nod. The Operative made no move, only rolled his wrist a little and cracked it. Somewhere in the bowels of the Sangheili vessel, a cargo crate opened and a man in a curious, matte-black suit of armor climbed out. He looked around and saw a major plasma conduit set behind a wall panel. He shot the Engineer working on it with a bizarre pistol and attached a charge to it. Lines on the back of his armor lit up, and he was hundreds of kilometers away, onboard the Prowler codenamed Delivery One.

"Shipmaster," the Operative said slowly, counting down the seconds, "I think you might want to call a shipwide alert for evacuation." The Shipmaster whirled on him. He grinned, disappearing in a crackle of blue light and a burst of displaced air. Then the ship exploded.

The crew of the Prowler, mostly made up of heavily armed and armored Marines, had no idea what was going on. First, they're attacked and disabled by three Covenant ships, then one of them explodes from the inside, then some entity appears out of nowhere near the cargo hold with the specimen in it and shoots anyone who comes across it with some weird directed energy weapon. It vaguely looked like a blue Sentinel beam on rapidfire.

The Cargo was protected by a five-man squad of the new Spartan IV's, armored in CQB-pattern MJOLNIR suits. Each was armed with a variety of weapons from standard Battle Rifles to modified Plasma Swords. Each and every one, however, was equipped with a shotgun and a full belt of flame grenades. Unfortunately, they were positioned to guard against the Cargo escaping, not against someone trying to get _to _it. The first one went down without a sound, his neck guard torn off and stabbed into the organ it was supposed to protect.

The next Spartan found dead was killed with a full blast from that weapon to the face, straight through his shields and out the other side. The third actually managed to get his knife out, and the forth scored a hit on the intruder's arm. It bounced off the black armor's shields. That one died messily and loudly as the enemy stabbed him with an electrified grenade. He cooked inside his armor.

The fifth, spooked somewhat by the sudden deaths of his comrades, was stationed within the Cargo holding bay itself. He turned around slowly as he heard something *ping* behind him, then an electrical whine as something unsealed. Realizing what it was, he wheeled back in horror and turned to run. It only got him a blast to the back of his head.

**~~O~~**

On the bridge of the Prowler, the Captain was trying to keep his bowels under control. One of his bridge crew had already pulled his pistol and shot himself. The containment seals had been breached. He could feel the...presence of the things boring into the back of his mind. What once was whispers were now screams. Horrible, inhuman screams and the gibbering of unnatural things. The bridge doors dented as something big smashed into them.

He pulled out his sidearm and aimed it at the doors as the dent became bigger. Something punched a hole into the six inch titanium-A plate and tore the blast door out of its frame. It wasn't the specimen, at least not as it was when they put it in stasis. Claws, a mouth of teeth alone, empty eyes...

He fired and screamed and screamed until a claw wrapped around his arm and dragged him away.

**~~O~~**

The intruder punched in a series of coordinates into a computer on a lower deck and ran to the aft of the ship. There was a single Bumblebee Lifeboat one the entire vessel, activated only by codes and biological scanners to confirm that the operator was human. He shot away from the doomed Prowler and towards the oblivious planet below.

**~~O~~**

"I take it things worked out."

"Both Operatives were successful. The package is en route to Reach with the modified EMP pulse." The figure leaned back and took a bottle with dark liquid in it, pouring two glasses.

"It's a pity, in a way. These two galaxies just got out of a war, and we're throwing them right back into one."

"Perhaps. We have no other options, nor the luxury to second-guess ourselves. You took care of the Operatives?"

"They won't leave Jericho, you can be assured of that. I had my men release one of the modified specimens there early on to ensure no one would know what happened until it was far too late." The other man leaned into the light, taking the offered decanter. The first man winced slightly at the green glow in his eyes, remembering that long-ago event.

"What about...him?"

"He won't be a problem. By the time he figures out what's going on, he'll have already met my former master and gone to the Eye. After that, it'll just be you and me."

"If we pull this off, we'll be uncontested. The Resistance effort, the New Covenant...we'll crush them with the gains." Both smiled.

"To victory and a successful plan." Glass clinked as they watched the world beneath them burn under the fires of the Array.

**End Part Three**

* * *

Here's Part Three. Hours-wise, it's taken me the longest to write so far. Yes, the bit at the end is needless and confusing as all hell. Wait...say, a year or so and you'll find out what's going on there. Special thanks to my Coauthor, Anton Pein, who wrote the first draft of this section.

In other news, I've actually got content surplus. I'm a chapter ahead of my uploads now, which means Part Four is written, but you'll have to wait some random amount of time to see it. I'm an arse like that.

Some explanation about this whole thing may be necessary. I run and work for a forum called (duh) Halo Versus Star Wars. It was started by user Adar Fyrel in 2006 in an attempt to actually make a freeware game out of the concept. Unfortunately, legal issues stonewalled it and the site died. In September 2007, I gained control from Fyrel and with the remaining users revived the site. Since then, we've gained and lost people, but all added to the story in the Roleplaying sections. Which, I will admit straight off, most of the story (battle-wise) is based off of. That way, the story sort of writes itself at times and gives a bit of continuity with the site.

Each user created a character from a template and submitted it to me for use in the original story, and I'll use most of the same ones here. Likely, any main character (ie, has a name and is around for more than one chapter) is someone's submission, Tambor being an exception. If anyone wants to take a look, it's on the Invisionfree boards. I'm sure googling (sp?) it will get you there.

Ok, exposition done for now.

Query: Why is it that my spacers keep disappearing?


	4. Part Four: Internal Affairs

_**Part IV**_

There was more than one meeting taking place on Reach Station at the time. Sheppard sat at his desk, watching the man before him attempt to stare him down. Admiral Xiong. ONI's pet Admiral, in Sheppard's opinion. The man was irritating, to say the least. Somehow, he'd managed to track down the original mission report from Sheppard's first jaunt through the Rift near the beginning of the Covenant War.

"Why _did _you falsify the report?" Xiong eventually began. His fists were on the desk, propping him up as he lent over it to glare more intensely at Sheppard. The standing Admiral knew the answer to that, of course. A simple miswritten mission report was nothing to get up in arms about; they were common enough back then, during the horror of that war.

Sheppard gave him a blank stare. "To which report do you refer?"

"So you've falsified more than one?"

"In my line of work, one keeps many secrets. Even more so in yours. I can hardly be blamed for a few intentional errors here and there."

Xiong tossed a thick bundle of papers onto the desk. "Not one thing in that report makes any sense. Especially how you escaped the city world and got back here. There's no way you pulled all of that off on your own. Who helped you?"

"I believe it's mentioned somewhere in there that my _team _was with me. Or was the death of five Spartans not noteworthy back then? Ah, but I've forgotten. Spartan's don't die." He wished that were true.

A simple recon mission. That was all it was supposed to be. Five fresh Spartans, sent to find out what this nebula was doing in the middle of nowhere and whether or not it was a Covenant base. Their small vessel was pulled into the Rift and destroyed. By sheer luck or perhaps by design, the five Spartans survived in a Pelican dropship, which was captured by a ship similar to the triangular one escorting the Ambassador's vessel. A Star Destroyer, it was called.

They became scientific curiosities. The Empire ran all sorts of tests on them after subduing their initial efforts to escape. During a survival test, the first of them had died: Harold. The ship found its way to a gigantic city-world, and the Spartans were taken to a facility underground and subjected to steadily more invasive and painful experiments. The second one to die, Krista, had gone berserk from one of the chemicals injected into her. She destroyed an entire lab, killed eight scientists, six of the white-armored troopers, and strangled one of the Dark Jedi watching the project before she'd found her way into a sealed chamber. They vented out the air.

Not an hour after Krista died and was dissected, something attacked the research facility and summarily destroyed it. During this event, the three remaining Spartans escaped into the city above. They went to ground in a slum somewhere, able to see neither ground nor sky. They'd managed to recover their gear, and their captors had never figured out how to remove the MJOLNIR armor, so they still had that. They existed on stolen food and adrenaline for a month, avoiding groups sent out to find them. Eventually bounty hunters were commissioned as well.

All the while, an invisible entity followed them around, hovering just at the edges of awareness. It was obviously powerful, too. An entire platoon of Stormtroopers had them pinned down in a building once. Whatever the entity was, it attacked the enemy and killed them all in the space of two minutes. When it was done, it deployed a bomb to cover its tracks. The only remaining piece of the troopers was a perfect sphere cut into the ground and surrounding buildings and a rising cloud of superheated gas. It disappeared after that.

It all went even further south after that. A week later, the three wound up in an air chase. Their vehicle was shot down. The third to die: Beth. Sheppard and the single remaining other Spartan, Sarah, were both recovered from the wreckage by an underground Rebellion group. They were nursed back to health in the acrid blue liquid called Bacta. Communication was a severe issue. It didn't matter, in the end. Somehow, the Empire found them and attacked the base. The Spartans were rescued again by the entity, which they identified as _B-13_ from the inscription on its right pauldron. It blasted through the Imperial attack and flew them to safety under the power of its own armor.

It revealed itself to be a human; he called himself Daniels. Combat Admiral First Class C.T. Daniels. He wouldn't say where he was from or how he'd found them, only that he knew a way they could get back. They had to steal a ship, get off the city-world (which he called Coruscant) and get to an Imperial shipyard where they would find a ship capable of getting them home.

The fourth to die: Sarah. While they tried to steal a ship, a freighter of sorts...Sheppard mentally shook his head. It was best not to remember that death.

"You're evading the question. Even with all of them, there's no way you'd make it back. It says here you plowed your way through one of their cruisers on the way back. And another report from the Marines who found you half-dead on Reach describes an alien vessel lifting off and disappearing into Space."

"We went around the cruiser when a Rebel fleet attacked and distracted them. The alien vessel was one we stole ourselves. Why it lifted off and left, we have no idea. It might have been some automated retrieval system." Daniels had been flying it, of course. "What exactly makes you think this report was completely doctored?"

"How would you even know how to pilot one of their ships? Our bests technicians could barely make heads or tails of it _with _the help of its pilot."

"Guesswork, mostly. I suppose we—I—got lucky."

"You're remarkably vague on the subjects of how your teammates died."

It was Sheppard's turn to glare. "They died fighting to survive in a hostile environment. They died _brutally_. I think Command wouldn't mind it if I omitted the exact details of my Spartans' deaths. That they know when and how is accurate enough." He huffed. "What's the point of this, Xiong? You know as well as I do why you're here. How'd you figure it out?"

"I asked around. You weren't completely quiet. You did tell a few people what really happened. Coercion can go a long way. Is he what you hoped to find when you sent that Strabo man to the nebula? Thought he might be waiting after all this time?"

"The way he explained it to me, time is meaningless when it comes to the Rift. He could be waiting on the other side for a signal. It may have only been days. He might have died of old age. And," he said, somewhat resignedly, "I knew it would happen eventually. I wanted it to be _my _man, not ONI's, who made First Contact."

"Why not go yourself?" Xiong asked.

"What, and arouse all that suspicion? Besides which, and I know it's really very arrogant of me to say, but if the ship should have been attacked and destroyed on the spot...I'm more valuable in that instance than a freighter captain."

"You expected war?"

"When I last saw that galaxy, it was under the control of a maniacal man named Palpatine, not a benevolent Republic and the Jedi Order." Sheppard tented his hands in front of him on the desk. "It's still possible that he might be waiting for a signal." The seated Admiral knew, of course, what that signal was. "It doesn't matter right now anyway. What does matter, though, and it's good that you came so I didn't have to hunt you down, is that project ONI has planned for this station."

Xiong glared ever more strongly. "What project?" Behind his hands, Sheppard smirked.

"Now you're the one playing dumb. But I will indulge you. I speak of the Flood research project that will be taking place on this station to minimize the effects of possible outbreak. It's my understanding that not one, but several worlds have had to be nuked from orbit because of outbreaks from facilities. Seven worlds, I believe the number is? And that doesn't even include the ones you _let _run rampant, just to see how bad it could get. The Death Worlds, they call them." Xiong sighed and bowed his head for a moment.

"There is a plan for a project here, yes. I won't say more than that."

"You don't need to. Like you, I have connections. When does it get here?"

"In a week. We'd hoped by then that you'd have your nose off this station and back to Earth. I'm sure you know how infamous you are to ONI and its affiliates."

"Oh, you mean that little thing in Africa after the War?"

"Little thing? You blew up Madagascar!"

"Which would have happened anyway from the _Flood research project_ you'd set up there following the Siege of Earth. A week, you say? You're good at timing, I'll give you that. I actually was going to be on Mars in a week, if Strabo hadn't found anything. He did, though." Sheppard leaned forward, matching Xiong's glare with a grin. "So now I'm still going to be here. Will that be a problem?"

"No," growled the ONI man. "No, you won't be a problem at all. You can't do anything to stop the project. Not legally."

"Who said I would try to stop it? Of course, that delivery ship won't even make it to this station, but that won't be any fault of mine. I won't even have to lift a finger."

"What have you done, Sheppard?" Xiong glared ever more intently. Sheppard just chuckled.

"I haven't done anything. I won't need to, like I said. It's not _me _you should be worrying about."

"Who, then? The UNSC won't touch us. Those Independents that live in the outer systems don't have the power to destroy the fleet escorting the delivery carrier. And those aliens don't have a clue what's going on."

"The Elites are getting fed up with ONI's repeated attempts at Flood control." Oh, the pun. Sheppard smiled a little wider. "They're already en route to intercept that fleet at its next stop point. Don't ask me how they know where and when that is, I haven't got a clue. Presumably some traitor in your ranks decided it was too dangerous." At this, Xiong lost his composure, just slightly.

"Damn it, Sheppard! These projects have a purpose! The Flood have amazing biological attributes! Regenerative tissue, ceaseless endurance, total immunity to any disease!"

"Save the disease that they are. The Forerunner race was vastly, vastly more powerful than ours and they were destroyed by the Flood. To my knowledge, we've fared no better in our research." He frowned now. "How many Marines died, do you think, in that facility on Phobos, when they had no idea what horror they were supposed to be guarding? How many civilians were killed by our _own nuclear weaponry_ on Jericho V's third moon? Miranda, when Hook City was terrorized for months by something lurking in the surrounding forest? Titan, when you people sank a science station into Jupiter to cover up what you'd done. Delta Halo. Madagascar." The list was longer, but those were the major incidents. "All failures, all resulting in no survivors, all because the Office of Naval Intelligence couldn't keep their paws off The Virus."

"I was _at _Phobos. I fought the Flood, I personally destroyed the facility to prevent them spreading. I was one of three survivors. One was an ONI officer who immediately recruited me. The other was a single Flood spore, which was used to start the project over on Titan." Xiong shook his head, realizing he was about to start raging about the past, which was a fast track to getting shot when working for Section III. "Reach Station is going to be different. We've constructed a section specifically for the project. In the first sign of outbreak, it is hard-programmed to detach and start relaying a hostile IFF signal. Any nearby ships equipped with plasma weaponry, as well as this station itself, would vaporize it completely. Failing that, it would be on a collision course with the star. Foolproof."

"Famous last words." Sheppard sighed and reached for his intercom. "This is Admiral Sheppard to the _Argonaut_. Tesla, what's the current status of the Elite fleet sent to intercept the ONI carrier?" He waited. "Tesla, I repeat, what's the status of the Elite strikeforce?"

"Who's Tesla?" Xiong asked.

"My smart AI, he's running my flagship. Or he was when I last checked in." He keyed the comm again. "Admiral Sheppard to Reach System Control, what's the status of the _Argonaut_?" Again, silence. The two Admirals exchanged a look. Xiong was the first one out the door, having already been standing. Sheppard quickly caught up as they raced down the corridors towards Reach Station's control center.

A comms blackout was standard protocol for certain situations where the Navy was involved. These days, none of them were good, and only two of them possible.

Either the aliens were doing this somehow, or someone had identified a Flood-controlled vessel and didn't want people panicking.

**~~O~~**

All across the system, communications and sensors were lost. From fighters to Reach Station itself, total darkness reigned. They couldn't see anything electronically. But they had windows. There were few who were close enough to see what was going on. Of those few, even fewer knew of the Damnation that had arrived.

It was one ship, badly damaged. It dropped out of Slipspace at ludicrous speeds over Reach and headed straight for Reach Station. On its way, a massive EMP pulse went out, knocking out communications and sensors all across the system. Ships gunned their engines wildly to get out of its way as it continued inexorably, seemingly straight for the massive man-made satellite. Those onboard the station tried to get the weapons to target it and shoot it down, but nothing was online. They looked on in horror as it sped towards the top half of the diamond. It missed.

Directly behind Reach Station were two very, very important ships: the Ambassador's Mon Calamari cruiser and the Republic Star Destroyer. Nether one had a clue what had happened. Both still had sensors and communications, and they could both detect the incoming vessel. Neither one had a clue what to do about it, however. Eventually the Star Destroyer captain decided it was a threat. The first turbolaser shots missed the fast-moving ship, flying past it. The second salvo tore open its front sections. If one looked closely, they might see gangrenous, putrid gas being expelled from the interior. The continued barrage destroyed most of the front of the ship and knocked it off its path. Just as it began to fall apart, small pods of metal and desiccated flesh shot out of the wreckage and impacted on the Mon Calamari vessel.

**End Part Four**

* * *

And here I begin the story of Xiong and Sheppard, both of which are characters submitted from the forum as mentioned in the last Author's Note. If anyone remembers from the original story I'd written, I've changed both of their histories significantly. More on that later, though.

Genesis is nearly complete, with one chapter left to go. After this, we'll be writing_ Halo Versus Star Wars: Opening Salvo_. Keep an eye out for it, if you will. There's also another two projects going on that some people might be interested, but I'll save that for the End Note.

Well, that's all I have to say 'bout that...the fun starts next chapter.


	5. Part V: That Old, Familiar Feeling

_**Part V**_

The crew assumed they were just torpedoes until the bridge began to get reports of _something _onboard attacking the crew and...changing them. The screams of the dying began to fill the communication lines. The Star Destroyer wasn't sure what to do until it became apparent that they couldn't raise the Ambassador's communicator. They received reports that the cruiser they were supposed to be escorting was being ravaged on the inside by some horror the renegade ship had unleashed. The Ambassador was incommunicado and the Mon Calamari ship was under attack. The Star Destroyer's captain quickly put two and two together.

"What are our odds, people?" the Captain asked his bridge crew. No one could tell him accurately, only that they were surrounded and didn't have room to make a run to Hyperspace. "Alright, we've gone up against tougher things before. To our knowledge, most of their ships don't even have shields. Clear the area around us and fire on that station with everything we've got."

Turbolasers and torpedo bays across the ship opened up and blew two UNSC frigates to pieces. They had no idea what was happening until it was too late. The next shots were aimed at Reach Station itself.

**~~O~~**

The conference was interrupted when a Marine in combat uniform entered the room and whispered something to the UNSC Admirals seated there. Eyes narrowed, frowns formed, and they slowly turned towards the Ambassador as the station rocked to an explosion. They stood up.

"We're under attack. Please wait here while we attend to this." The Admirals filed out, leaving the Marines and the Ambassador with his Jedi escort to try and figure out what was going on. Tambor's eyes were closed and he had a deep grimace on his face. He could feel it. Whatever it was he'd felt before on that ship, it was here, in this system. In fact, it was on...

His eyes snapped wide just in time for the Turbolaser fire to slam into the window and destroy several dozen meters of the station.

**~~O~~**

"Admiral Huntz, the Star Destroyer has engaged the vessels around it and Reach Station. We can't raise anyone on comms and our sensors are on the fritz. We have no idea what's going on." The Admiral spoke as he walked, the radio sewn into his lapel relaying his words to the command center of the station.

"Acknowledged. What's the status of the other vessel?"

"Unknown, sir. It hasn't shot anyone yet. The Observation Deck reports that it was struck by torpedoes from an unidentified rogue Prowler that dropped in-system around ten minutes ago, followed by an EMP that knocked out our communications and sensors. The damage appears to be minimal. It's unknown why only the Star Destroyer is engaging. Shall we-" the man on the other end was cut off by shouting voices.

"Destroy that vessel, now!"

"No, stop! Don't shoot them, you'll only make it worse."

"Stand down, Sheppard. Those weren't ordinary specimens, there was something more dangerous about them. You have to burn that ship before they escape."

"Xiong is right," said Leditzky. "They're too great a threat to this whole system. The aliens won't have a clue how to kill them, or what they even are."

Huntz stepped in. "Someone mind telling me what the hell is going on?" Everyone was silent for a second, then Sheppard spoke up.

"It's Flood, sir. That Prowler was Flood-controlled, and those weren't torpedoes, they were boarding pods. They think it was an attack, and if we shoot them now it will only confirm it."

"Irrelevant," said Xiong. "The Flood is too dangerous. That ship is all but lost, and our best bet now is to destroy it before they can take it over completely." Sheppard began to protest again.

"Everyone, shut up!" Silence reigned once more. Huntz continued, "While we continue debating, that Star Destroyer is continuing to fire on this unshielded station. We can still salvage this situation if we get communications back online. How long will that take?" Another few moments passed.

"Too long, sir. The EMP fried everything. At least an hour." Someone groaned on the other side of the link.

"What now?" Four Admirals asked in unison.

"That last salvo hit the station dead on. You'll never guess where." The schematic was relayed to their PDAs.

"Oh, _hell._"

**~~O~~**

"Captain, none of them have fired back."

"That's odd. What's the status of the _Never-Ending Peace_?"

"They're trying to repel the boarders as best they can, sir, but the command bridge was overrun. They're falling back to the escape pods and shuttle bays. At last report, there were only a hundred left. The rest are dead or...converted."

**~~O~~**

"Get to the shuttles! We've got to get off this ship!" Pilot Kimberly Hay yelled to the people passing her. She fired a few shots down the corridor at the advancing mass of horrors. None of them even showed they felt it. Another few shots from her sidearm, and she turned and ran. There were eight of them, all told, who were making their way to her shuttle. The chances of making it in time weren't looking good.

It had all started with those torpedoes. Their first clue that something was wrong was the lack of reports from repair crews. People started going missing from unaffected sections of the ship. Then, reports of screaming. Then they _did _hear from the repair crews, in the form of shambling, undying things that were once sentient beings. The little ones, that popped, swarmed over the first squad to try and repel the boarders. Then the enemy had guns and the know-how to use them.

When they broke open the sealed blast doors to the bridge, few people on the command crew had the chance to even turn around before they were buried under a mass of the things. After that, the ship started going haywire as life support shut down, then started back up with different settings. The whole place was starting to smell and suffocate.

It had been twelve minutes since the pods first struck the side of the cruiser. In just twelve minutes, the things had overpowered most of the ship and killed or consumed them. There were less than a hundred of the original crew left, and they were all making their way to any means of escape they could find.

A ball of pinkish flame whispered past her head and struck the man in front of her. He screamed and screamed as she ran past, and when she looked back he was a charred pile on the floor. One of the horrors opened its mouth, wider than its original form (by appearances, human) should have allowed by any stretch of physics. A tongue lolled out, dripping acid on the floor as it shuffled forward faster than its broken bones would have made possible. She screamed and ran faster.

The worst part was that they talked. The changed ones, the Infected, they talked using the ruined, bastardized vocal chords of the beings they once were. The effect was terrifying. They weren't true voices anymore, and they didn't say words she could understand, but on some gut level her instincts told her they were speaking. Every time she heard one of those horrible voices she nearly froze with fear. It must have been her imagination, but she could swear she heard deep, dripping laughter at the back of her mind.

She rounded a corner to find a group of Clones kneeling or standing in a line at the end of the corridor.

"Run, you idiots!" she screamed at them. "Blasters won't work!" The Sergeant of the squad only shook his head.

"It's our job to make sure you people get off this ship safely. Go, we'll hold them off as long as we can." His voice shook, but he didn't say anything more. She nodded her thanks, and continued to run. Maybe, she told herself, if I run fast enough, I won't hear them scream. She heard them anyway.

At last, her shuttle was in sight. Five of them had made it onboard and strapped in. She sprinted up the ramp, checked briefly to see if there were any stragglers, and closed the hatch.

"Beginning primary ignition sequences." The ship rumbled and lifted off the deck. She saw in the aft camera that the monsters had entered the hangar and were running towards the ship, some starting to make too-high leaps at it.

"Everyone hold on tight. I'm getting us out of here." Just then, she heard a noise above her head. She looked up at the air recycler cover and watched it shake for a moment. All she felt was terror. Complete, utter terror, as an Infection Form dropped out of the vent and landed on her face.

**~~O~~**

His leg was trapped under something. Smashed beneath a large slab of metal. That should hurt, shouldn't it? His other leg was gone. He saw a boot lying on the floor. Maybe it's his?

_David,_ he thought. _Isn't that my name? TX-30C. And that over there is Joseph. Wait. That's Joseph's _head. _There's something wrong with it. _He realized with mounting horror that the poor man's skull had been pierced through by a support beam from the room. Somehow, he himself had been protected by his armor. He was still breathing despite the gaping hole in one wall and the superheated metal at the opposite wall from where the window used to be. There was another hole there, leading deeper into the station. He tried to get up, but realized that it was a futile effort with both legs ruined.

The communicator in his helmet was smashed to pieces which floated around him in the vacuum. No rescue, then. Something in his mind told him he should be worried or panicking right then, but it wasn't heard under the confusion and haze of what had happened. Slowly, it came back to him. The Admirals leaving. The Jedi's face all scrunched up. Then a blinding light approaching the station-

Wait. He was seeing that now. A blinding light. Suddenly, the voice in his head telling him to get up and escape, to find help, stopped yelling at him and quivered in stupefying certainty of the oncoming doom.

**~~O~~**

It is only by sheer force of will and his connection to the Force that Jedi Master Nikolaus Peshter made his way gasping into the main Engineering section of the _Never-Ending Peace_. His double-bladed lightsaber was a wreck, only working out of one end. This he held in his right hand, and with his left steadied himself. One of the small ones, the Infection Forms, had gotten ahold of him. He limped on his right leg as his left was a bloodied mess where the probe had entered his flesh.

He felt it, the instant it made contact with his nervous system. A super-sentient being, a hive mind, murderous purpose...but twisted. There was what the things naturally were, and then there was what they'd become. Some unspeakable horror had changed them and made them worse. The "normal" Flood would never have been able to overwhelm them so quickly.

They couldn't be allowed to gain control of the ship, to escape. They had to be destroyed. He lurched his way to the command console normally manned by the Chief Engineer. It still was, though only by his head. Nikolaus pushed it aside with some disgust and typed in the override code for self-destruct. Something smashed into the doors to the large room. He sighed, and pressed the confirmation button just as the doors exploded inward and a mass of the creatures shambled towards him. Looking within, drawing on the Force, he found a calm. And a name.

"Come and get it, Daemons."

**~~O~~**

"Captain! The _Never-Ending Peace_ is auto-destructing. They're trying to stop the invaders from escaping." The Captain of the ISD _Freedom_ looked down briefly.

"Bring us about. Send a message to the Republic. Include a full record of the events here and a warning that negotiations have failed. Tactical, target the main weapons of the station and take them out systematically. Give the shuttle as much time as you can." The crew complied, knowing they weren't going to be making the return trip through the Rift.

Turbolasers realigned from their targets to lock onto the first of the double MAC systems on the station. Proton torpedoes fired in sequence. The _Freedom_ let loose a torrent of fire into Reach Station as a single shuttle tore out of its hangar and sped away, all but unnoticed by the reeling UNSC fleet. A small cheer went up as one of the large guns was blown off of the station. Engines powered and the ISD moved into a broadside position to circle the station. It never got the chance.

Several dozen plasma torpedoes slammed into its side, damaging the shielding. Plasma-based weaponry all across the station lit up and peppered the vessel until the shields imploded. Then, the two remaining online Magnetic Accelerator Cannons opened up, firing a quick one-two burst. The depleted Uranium rounds punched straight through the Star Destroyer. Internal explosions rippled across it, growing in intensity until the constant stream of plasma the station poured into it weakened it enough for it to shake itself apart.

**~~O~~**

"You idiot!" shouted Admiral Sheppard as he grabbed Xiong by his collar and shoved him against the wall. "I told you not to fire on those ships. We could have salvaged this. We could have sent a representative, or saved their Ambassador and stopped this from happening. We could have just explained ourselves." The man had just ordered the station's reactivated weapons free.

Xiong hooked him across the jaw, finally losing composure completely. "Get your hands off of me, Sheppard! You know damn well that that ship would have destroyed this station piece by piece. This was the only option." He ducked under Sheppard's return strike and moved to tackle the overbalanced man.

"Both of you, shut up!" Huntz and Leditzky had finally made it to the Command Center of Reach Station. "You're making fools of yourselves and the Admiralship in general!" They were ignored.

"You just put us right back where we were twenty-six years ago. We can't survive another war, not against the Republic!" Sheppard rolled from the tackle and lashed out with a foot. Xiong caught it and spun him around, but Sheppard just rolled with it and brought the other foot up. This was caught instead by Leditzky, while Xiong was restrained by Huntz. The bridge crew looked on in amused fascination as the Admirals brawled in front of them.

"Stand down!" This was accompanied by a pistol discharge. All eyes turned to Leditzky. "Send a message to Earth and tell them to get the Navy ready. Xiong and Sheppard, return to your fleets and await orders." He shook his head as they begrudgingly complied. They all outranked him, he knew, but it didn't matter at that point. "What's the status of the Ambassador's shuttle?" Silence met his question. He asked again, louder.

"Uh, gone, sir. The hangar was hit by a stray torpedo from the...enemy vessel." Sheppard cringed at the word "enemy." He'd been afraid of this since Day One.

**~~O~~**

There were three this time. They sat in a brightly-lit conference room, reviewing data sent back by several observers from the events at Reach Station. Two were very similar to the dark figures in the dark room from before, but also very different.

"This war's started too soon. Someone or something is accelerating events beyond our control," Three said.

"Who and why?" added Two.

"That can come later." One. "The how is the important part, and what happened on that Prowler. Where did those specimens come from? Their ONI can't have found a way into the Warp yet. If they had we'd know about it. Someone from our end must have deliberately supplied them with corrupted samples."

"My Operatives are working on it," Two put forth. "They should be reporting back with new information within the week."

"Should we move into the open?" Three asked. "Sheppard will call for your help eventually."

"Yes. You two will accompany me later, once you've assembled your fleets and settled matters here. I will take the _Fist_ and secure the Rift on the other side, initiate First Contact with the UNSC, and bring the various factions under heel."

**~~O~~**

It drifted silently through the dark, shut down to avoid detection, disguised as debris from the destroyed Mon Calamari Cruiser. At the pilot's seat was something that had once been human. Four masses behind it wriggled within from developing sports and Infection Forms. It manipulated a few controls, pulsing the engines briefly to get it moving. These Flood were far more intelligent than their "natural" brethren. Still, however, the faintly-groaning parody of Kimberly Hay was a distended, deformed creature with twisted limbs and a twisted, eternally-screaming face.

The fifth creature in the hold screeched, a high, whining tone, and died. The ship vanished into the Warp.

**Halo Versus Star Wars**

**-GENESIS-**

**End **


	6. End Notes

Halo Versus Star Wars

**-GENESIS-**

**End Notes**

Well, there it is. Almost exactly half a year in the making (January 1 to July 2), Genesis is done. We've set up I don't know how many plotlines in this story. Hopefully, at some point, they'll all be explored to their fullest. Hopefully.

Part I

I wrote and rewrote this part three times before I decided enough was enough. My co-author, who has dubbed himself Anton Pein, was a godsend. Without him, I wouldn't have been able to finish writing Part I alone, let alone the rest of it. I'm especially thankful for the names. I'm bad at names.

Part II

This took entirely too long to write. This is partly because of my own laziness and partly because of school. I wrote the description for Reach Station two days after releasing Part I and then stopped writing, not having a clue what to do next. Once again, Anton pulled my ass out of the fire.

This set up the Warp-Corrupted Flood (Kudos as promised to whoever it was that guessed that, by the way) in the story. Yes, yes, I know I said that there wouldn't be much Warhammer 40K crossover, and none at all in Genesis. However, if one waits through all of the next segment, it will all make much, much more sense as to why and how that ended up happening.

Part III

What can I say about III...writing it was a pain. Mostly, this was done by Anton and expanded by me. Working out the best way to start the War took a while. In the first version of the Story, it was some obscure assassin from who-knew-where shooting someone from an air vent. I think this makes much more sense.

Part IV

This one was written by me, as it involved entirely Halo characters. This was really just to set the stage for Sheppard and Xiong's actions later in the overall story. I keep alluding to things and saying it will be clear later. I should probably stop that.

I wrote this before we started writing III, and it helped in that it gave a convenient and unintentional excuse for the Prowler and fleet toting around a Flood specimen, along with the sudden arrival of Sangheili vessels.

Part V

There's a lot of jumping about here, going from place to place and person to person. Mostly, this was just because there were a lot of things to go over. Also, we wanted to tell what was going on from several points of view. This whole chapter, minus the end, takes around twenty minutes. A lot of it happens simultaneously.

All around, this has been a fun project and an interesting experience with writing. Thank you to everyone for your reviews and constructive criticisms, they are much appreciated.

I must once again advertise our site, which is listed as my homepage on my profile for those of you interested in seeing the Primary Source.

Up next is Opening Salvo. Questions will be answered, and probably a lot more asked. But some answered. Which is good. Feel free to ask them, by the way.

* * *

Signing off, for now, Co-Authors Exterminatus Extremis and Anton Pein.


End file.
